Patricia Werner Ribas “Balbúrdia” 09.05 – 07.06.2025

Balbúrdia

The Dutch occupation of Northeast Brazil in the seventeenth century is relatively unknown in the Netherlands, in Brazil however, it is often romanticized as a period of progress and development, especially when contrasted with Portuguese colonization.Yet, like other colonial ventures, Dutch Brazil was ultimately a commercial enterprise driven by profit and sustained through exploitative and inhumane practices.

Sugar cultivation had already brought immense wealth to Portuguese colonists, prompting the Directors of the West Indische Compagnie (WIC) to establish their own colonial project in Brazil (1624–1654). The most significant phase of this endeavor took place under the governance of Johan Maurits of Nassau-Siegen, a German count appointed by the WIC.

To impose European order on the settlement, Johan Maurits transformed Recife into a colonial capital, renaming it Mauritsstad. His administration oversaw ambitious and costly infrastructure projects, including public parks, botanical gardens, a bridge, and two palaces—structures that now survive only through historical images and descriptions.

Like many European rulers of his time, Johan Maurits was deeply invested in natural history, and the artistic and scientific works produced under his patronage remain his most enduring cultural legacy. Dutch painters Albert Eckhout and Frans Post, German natural historian Georg Marcgraf, and Dutch physician Willem Piso were among the notable figures he brought to Brazil. Their studies provided Europe with the first detailed artistic and scientific representations of the region.

Although the WIC’s ambition to build a sugar empire in Brazil was never fully realized, the pursuit of wealth and territorial expansion encouraged trade, exploration, and settlement. Colonial rulers commissioned studies of indigenous populations, documenting their physical appearance, languages, and customs. These ethnographic records—both visual and textual—not only facilitated colonial governance but also reinforced European scrutiny and control over colonized peoples.

The paintings of Eckhout and Post played a crucial role in legitimizing Johan Maurits’s authority as both a colonial and cultural leader. Their depictions contributed to the early development of racial classification systems, embedding social hierarchies within European visual culture. In Brazil, reproductions of these images became some of the first representations of its people, flora, and fauna—shaping national self-perception through the lens of the colonizer.

In the exhibition Balbúrdia—a Portuguese word meaning noise, confusion, or mess—artist Patricia Werneck Ribas revisits this chapter of Brazilian history through film and collage.

Her essay film Para M (To M) portrays contemporary Recife and its inhabitants, addressing Johan Maurits through a poetic female voice that questions his legacy in the region. The letter “M” emerges as a symbol, recalling the branding of enslaved Africans under his rule.

In her collages, Ribas deconstructs these early representations of Brazil, reassembling them in new ways by incorporating fragments from other sources linked to Brazilian identity. Through this process, she challenges the colonial gaze and proposes alternative visual narratives.